Machine Translation (MT) has evolved along with different types of computer-assisted translation tools and a notable progress has been achieved in improving the quality of translations. However, in spite of the recent positive developments in translation technologies, not all problems have been solved and in particular the identification, interpretation and translation of multi-word units (MWUs) still represent open challenges, both from a theoretical and a practical point of view. The low standard of analysis and translation of MWUs in translation technologies suggest that there is the need to invest in further research with the goal of improving the performance of the various translation applications. Multi-word units (MWUs) are a complex linguistic phenomenon, ranging from lexical units with a relatively high degree of internal variability to expressions that are frozen or semi-frozen. Such units are very frequent both in everyday language and in languages for special purposes. Their interpretation and translation sometimes present unexpected obstacles even to human translators, mainly because of intrinsic ambiguities, structural and lexical asymmetries between languages, and, finally, cultural differences. The current theoretical work on this topic deals with different formalisms and techniques relevant for MWU processing in MT as well as other translation applications, such as: automatic recognition of MWUs in a monolingual or bilingual setting; alignment and paraphrasing methodologies; development, features and usefulness of handcrafted monolingual and bilingual linguistic resources and grammars; use of MWUs in Statistical Machine Translation (SMT) domain adaptation, as well as empirical work concerning their modelling accuracy and descriptive adequacy across various language pairs. At the practical level, the issue of MWU has been addressed in various MT approaches, whether knowledge-based, statistical (word-based, phrase-based or factored-based) or hybrid. In general, MWU identification and translation problems are far from being solved and there is still considerable room for improvement. There is a recent growing attention to MWU processing in MT and Translation Technologies, as it has been acknowledged that it is not possible to create large-scale applications without properly handling MWUs of all kinds. The focus of this workshop is to address the MWU issue in a synergetic way, taking advantage of the recent developments in disciplines such as Linguistics, Translation Studies, Computational Linguistics, and Computational Phraseology. The main aim of the Workshop is, therefore, to bring together researchers working on various aspects of MWU processing in different disciplines, in order to discuss and propose innovative ideas and methods in relation to MT and Translation Technologies. In particular, this workshop welcomes the exchange of interactions between researchers in NLP working on the computational treatment of multi-word units, experts in phraseology (including computational phraseology) working on challenging topics of their discipline, as well as translation practitioners, to the benefit of applying their latest results to advance the state of the art in MWU translation.

MT Summit workshop proceedings for: Multi-word Units in Machine Translation and Translation Technologies (Organised at the 14th Machine Translation Summit)

MONTI, JOHANNA;
2013-01-01

Abstract

Machine Translation (MT) has evolved along with different types of computer-assisted translation tools and a notable progress has been achieved in improving the quality of translations. However, in spite of the recent positive developments in translation technologies, not all problems have been solved and in particular the identification, interpretation and translation of multi-word units (MWUs) still represent open challenges, both from a theoretical and a practical point of view. The low standard of analysis and translation of MWUs in translation technologies suggest that there is the need to invest in further research with the goal of improving the performance of the various translation applications. Multi-word units (MWUs) are a complex linguistic phenomenon, ranging from lexical units with a relatively high degree of internal variability to expressions that are frozen or semi-frozen. Such units are very frequent both in everyday language and in languages for special purposes. Their interpretation and translation sometimes present unexpected obstacles even to human translators, mainly because of intrinsic ambiguities, structural and lexical asymmetries between languages, and, finally, cultural differences. The current theoretical work on this topic deals with different formalisms and techniques relevant for MWU processing in MT as well as other translation applications, such as: automatic recognition of MWUs in a monolingual or bilingual setting; alignment and paraphrasing methodologies; development, features and usefulness of handcrafted monolingual and bilingual linguistic resources and grammars; use of MWUs in Statistical Machine Translation (SMT) domain adaptation, as well as empirical work concerning their modelling accuracy and descriptive adequacy across various language pairs. At the practical level, the issue of MWU has been addressed in various MT approaches, whether knowledge-based, statistical (word-based, phrase-based or factored-based) or hybrid. In general, MWU identification and translation problems are far from being solved and there is still considerable room for improvement. There is a recent growing attention to MWU processing in MT and Translation Technologies, as it has been acknowledged that it is not possible to create large-scale applications without properly handling MWUs of all kinds. The focus of this workshop is to address the MWU issue in a synergetic way, taking advantage of the recent developments in disciplines such as Linguistics, Translation Studies, Computational Linguistics, and Computational Phraseology. The main aim of the Workshop is, therefore, to bring together researchers working on various aspects of MWU processing in different disciplines, in order to discuss and propose innovative ideas and methods in relation to MT and Translation Technologies. In particular, this workshop welcomes the exchange of interactions between researchers in NLP working on the computational treatment of multi-word units, experts in phraseology (including computational phraseology) working on challenging topics of their discipline, as well as translation practitioners, to the benefit of applying their latest results to advance the state of the art in MWU translation.
2013
978-3-9524207-4-4
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Descrizione: Atti del convegno MT Summit 2013 - Workshop on Multiword units in Machine Translation and Translation Technology
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11574/170147
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